More Details About Tell Tale Steps

Charlotte Edmonds's Fuse, one of tonight's choreographers

Photo Michel Schnater

Copyright 2016 Dutch National Ballet

All rights reserved

Reproduction licensed by the company

In Tell Tale Steps #2  30 May 2016 I mentioned the panel discussion and performance that will take place at the Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre in Leeds tonight (see Northern Ballet's website Choreographic Lab Sharing).   The company has now published a few more details on its website.

The members of the panel will include:

• "David Nixon OBE: Northern Ballet Artistic Director, choreographer and former dancer;
• Kenneth Tindall: Choreographer, 2015 Choreographic Lab participant and former Northern Ballet dancer;
• Dr Geraldine Morris: Reader in Dance at Roehampton University, specialist in the work of Frederick Ashton and former Royal Ballet dancer;
• Mary Brennan: Dance critic and writer;
• Chair Jane Hackett: Choreographic Lab Curator; Artistic Programmer and Producer, Sadler's Wells."

I hope the chair will invite questions and interventions from the public this year. Last year Mike Dixon asked for questions in the closing minutes of the 1 hour and 45 minute discussion. I asked one question and Gita the other. There wasn't time for any more (see My Thoughts on Saturday Afternoon's Panel Discussion at Northern Ballet 21 June 2015).

I missed last year's performances because I had to zoom down to Brum for the 25th anniversary celebrations of Birmingham Royal Ballet's move from London and David Bintley's 20th anniversary as the company's artistic director (see In Praise of Bintley 21 June 2015) but Gita stayed and she told me all about it. If it follows last year's format there will be some dancing followed by some chat.

I have a modest proposal for Northern Ballet's management if (as I hope they do) they run another Tell Tale Steps next year and that is to invite Darius James or Amy Doughty from Ballet Cymru to the discussion. In my humble opinion that great little company stages some of the best narrative work I have ever seen and they do it on a very low budget and with limited numbers. There is a precedent. Last year Northern Ballet invited Christopher Hampson who, together with Ernst Meisner, was my choreographer of the year last year (see Highlights of 2015 29 Dec 2015). Hampson made the best contribution to last year's panel discussion and I think James or Doughty would also have something of value to say.

I will give a full report on tonight's events after tomorrow.  If you can't make it to the event Northern Ballet has promised to screen it over its YouTube channel.   You can get a taster now from Tell Tale Steps 2, Choreographic Lab 2016.

Ballet Cymru at Home

The Riverfront Theatre, Newport

Photo  Gif absarnt

Creative Commons Licence

Source Wikipedia

After the State of the Art Panel Discussion: Narrative Dance in Ballet earlier this year I exchanged a few words with The Herald's dance critic Mary Brennan, Brennan had spoken very warmly of Peter Darrell whom I greatly admired and once had the honour of meeting. Darrell was artistic director of what was then Western Theatre Ballet and it was he who took the company to Glasgow shortly after I went up to St Andrews. "He gave us our national dance company" Brennan enthused. "But at the expense of the West Country and South Wales" I replied. Being a native Mancunian I know how it stung when Northern Ballet crossed the Pennines even though it never affected me personally as Leeds is no further away from my home than Manchester. The departure of Northern Ballet diminished our city even though we still have Northern Ballet School, The Lowry and Manchester City Ballet.

Well, South Wales and the West Country have had to wait a very long time but they now have a first class ballet company again in Ballet Cymru. Actually the company has existed  for nearly 30 years but it is now receiving the recognition and funding that it needs to go places. It is still quite small. It reminds me very much of Scottish Theatre Ballet when I first knew it. Although James is very different from Darrell he has similar drive and similar sense of vision. Nearly half a century ago I envisaged Scottish Theatre Ballet as it is now - one of the world's great companies. I have the same feeling about Ballet Cymru and I hope that I live long enough to see it

On Saturday 3 Oct 2015 I joined the London Ballet Circle's visit to Ballet Cymru's premises in Newport. In order not to pre-empt the official write up I will say that we met James, Amy Doughty, Patricia Vallis and Mike Holden as well as the dancers. We watched the company class and a rehearsal of Cinderella. We toured the company's building which is on an industrial estate in Rogestone a few miles to the north west of the city centre.  Darius James told us about the history of the company and his plans for the future which are very ambitious indeed.

The London Ballet Centre's transactions are subject to a a regime very similar to the Chatham House rule so I can't say too much about what was said and done during our visit. I will however mention two things that I knew already. The first is that there is now a magnificent theatre in Newport for the company to showcase its work. That is the Riverfront arts centre on the banks of the Usk. The second is that the company provides great opportunities to local dancers.  It runs workshops, intensives and associates programmes in conjunction with the Royal Ballet and the RAD. On the 18 Oct it is hosting a "Creative Spaces" event in conjunction with the RAD and on the 30 Oct a Junior Associate Experience Day for the Royal Ballet School. It also offers body conditioning and ballet classes to the general public every Monday for a very reasonable fee. Details of these outreach programmes can be obtained from the education officer Mandev Sokhi on mandevsokhi@welshballet.co.uk.

Newport lies at the heart of the Great Western Cities with a combined population of 2.5 million and a GVA of £58 billion. This is South Wales and the West's answer to the Northern Powerhouse. The initiative aims to improve transport links and attract investment to the region.  If it succeeds it will greatly expand Ballet Cymru's market. It will also provide opportunities for attracting sponsorship and funding of other kinds. After the visit I toured some of the city's landmarks and did a little shopping in a local supermarket. I got the impression that things are beginning to buzz around the Severn estuary.

My Thoughts on Saturday Afternoon's Panel Discussion at Northern Ballet

Photo Marie-Lan Nguyen
Source Wikipedia

Before I left for Birmingham I listened to a panel discussion advertised as a State of the Art Panel Discussion: Narrative Dance in Ballet. It took place in the Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre between 13:15 and 15:00 on 20 June. The panel was chaired by Mike Dixon and consisted of the critics Mary Brennan, Louise Levene and Graham Watts, Christopher Hampson, the artistic director of Scottish Ballet and dancers Tobias Batley and Dreda Blow.

Northern Ballet's artistic director, David Nixon, introduced the session by explaining that this discussion was part of the Tell Tale Steps programme the purpose of which was research. He described the work that had been carried out by Kenneth Tindall, Ludovic Ondiviela, Constant Vigier and Andrew McNicol as a "laboratory" and not a workshop. The crucial difference, he explained, is that a workshop is for creating things whereas a laboratory is where experiments take place.

It all sounded very exciting and I awaited inspiration and erudition with bated breath. Although it was a very interesting discussion that did not exactly happen.  I certainly didn't learn anything I did not already know or could not easily have looked up on Google. If that was the case for me it must have been even more true for Nixon and the other dance makers and dance artists who attended.

The problem was that the panel was too large and their experience was too diverse.  Each of the speakers spoke about his or her personal experience. The critics spoke about the criteria for judging a ballet. Hampson spoke about how he creates a ballet which is very personal. Batley spoke about his reading before works starts on a new ballet and produced his copy of The Great Gatsby bristling with post it notes. He gave an example of how he considered a sentence in the novel about his character's smile and tried to incorporate it into his performance. Blow spoke about the ballet that she had created for children.

To me the discussion was unfocussed.  Maybe because I am a lawyer I would have appreciated some definitions. The title of the discussion was "Narrative Dance in Ballet" but what exactly did the panellists mean by "narrative dance"? Something with a plot like Sleeping Beauty? But that would exclude an awful lot of ballets like Les Sylphides which has characters like sylphs and a poet and indeed tells a story but does not have a plot as such. On the other there are some ballets like Giselle where the plot is best forgotten. Others like The Nutcracker where the plot is tenuous at best. I was bursting to ask that question from very early in the discussion but I did not get my opportunity until the very end.  In fact, only Gita and I managed to get a word in edgeways.

There were topics that I really wish the panel could have developed. Brennan mentioned the work of Peter Darrell who was artistic director of Western Theatre Ballet when it moved to Glasgow. Another panellist mentioned all the versions of Cinderella that had been produced lately including Hampson's and wondered whether there was a trend. Yet another discussed how technology enabled dance makers to explore topics that could not have been addressed before. Anther opined that it was impossible to choreograph ballets to Beethoven. I could have contributed to all those discussions.

The topic I most wanted to discuss was Darrell. I was at St Andrews when Western Theatre Ballet moved to Glasgow and one of our professors was John Steer who later chaired the company. Scottish Theatre Ballet (as the company called itself after the move) was the first company that I got to know and love. That was because Darrell had ignited my love of ballet. I met him once and got to know some of his dancers better. I am still a Friend of Scottish Ballet and I greatly admire the work of Hampson, his successor. Some of the things that were said about Darrell, his work and legacy did not sound quite right,

Although the panel discussed Cinderella, nobody mentioned Darius James's version for Ballet Cymru which I saw last week and is the very best version of the story I have seen to date (see Ballet Cymru's Cinderella 15 June 2015). They spoke about Ashton's, Ratmansly's, "Christopher's" (I am not sure whether they were referring to Wheeldon or Hampson) but not the gem that has recently been touring the nation.

On the use of technology and whether it increases the dance maker's range I wanted to sound a note of caution.  The use of film to represent flashbacks was not new. I had seen MacMillan's Anastasia and modern choreographers should treat such technologies with circumspection.

As to whether Beethoven can be choreographed, nobody mentioned Ashton's magnificent Creatures of Prometheus to the Eroica symphony which marked the bicentenary of the composer's birth.

I had hoped to introduce myself to Hampson and Watts but the panellists were whisked away to the boardroom after the discussion.  Gita buttonholed Brennan for a while and she seemed to want to talk but even Brennan was eventually RKO'd from the profanum vulgus by a minder. I think that was a big mistake (huge) on the part of the organizers. The folk who gave up their Saturday afternoons to attend the seminars are the ones who keep the ballerinas in pointe shoes, whether as theatre goers, taxpayers, Friends of the company or in many cases all three and we have ideas, views and experiences to contribute that could be useful.